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SITE OF THE WEEK

It’s a cute opening. When you click the Inventations (say: in-ven TA-tions) homepage, assuming your computer Flash plug-in is up to speed, the screen percolates with dots and up pops a huge red flower. The mood is whimsical and, with the weather and the news around here lately, I was ready for something light.

VISIT the INVENTATIONS web site

The company owners, however, are serious. Inventations sells hand-made invitations. Christy Tuttle and Michelle Monroe met while working at an Internet and telephone service provider in Portsmouth. Both like arts and crafts. Both wanted to own their own business. Somehow the topic turned to the poor state of commercially-manufactured invitations. The women agreed they could both make better ones – and Inventations was born.

The American dream is to make a living doing what you love best. The invitations pictured in the web site gallery are attractive, creative, unique -- a definite slice above the cookie-cutter cards. But dreaming and running a successful business are two different things. You need customers, capital, business acumen, marketing, a solid product, and plenty of grit to stay the course. After talking, at length to Michelle Monroe, I believe these two women have just what it takes to thrive in this unlikely field.

"After a wedding, the only visual memory you have are the photographs and the invitations," Monroe says.

She sees a trend moving away from the "traditional" wedding toward more sensible, less costly, more individualized ceremonies. She says the trend extends to parties and other events, at least among her friends. It’s a lifestyle. These are people, she says, who don’t just want to shop at the mall or drink Coke or watch prime time TV or patronize the biggest supermarkets, but are looking for variety, quality and individuality – even in the food they eat. It’s a new generation of thinking Americans, who may not always march to the corporate-consumer drumbeat.

"People really like hand-made, local items. We like Terra Cotta Pasta and Stonewall Kitchen. We shop at a lot of smaller stores, getting vegetables at the Golden Harvest (in Kittery), meat at Carl’s next door, fish at the fish market, baked goods at Beachpea Bakery. Those are the places we try to shop."

Monroe is banking that this trend away from mass produced items will lead more and more customers to companies like Inventations. And best of all, the work oozes with satisfaction.

"I like working with people," she says, "especially in something that makes them happy. And I love making cards. I can spend all my nights and weekends on it and it’s never a chore to me."

We’ve met Patrick Rowan before. He’s one of the not-so-secret founders of The Secret Agency web design company (www.secretagencygroup.com). He’s also Michelle Monroe’s fiancée. They will be married in May. That explains how Inventations got their classy colorful web site so cheaply. Did I say "cheaply"? I meant free.

The site is hand-coded in an open source system called PHP (www.PHP.net) According to Rowan, the hypertext pre-processor works similarly to Cold Fusion, but handles graphics better. Right now, the site is hosted in Japan.

"PHP was entirely put together by an online consortium of geeks," Roman says. "And it’s free!"

Rowan has captured the spirit of the company in his simple, elegant design. It’s all about the cards, and he let’s them speak. From the appearance of the Splash screen, the message is – this is going to be fun.

"I’m the kind of guy you lock in a closet and come back in a week for your web site," he says. "My goal here was to say -- we’re fun people and yet we’re good at what we do".

Rowan has been surprised by just how successful the site has been. Already Inventations receives four or five requests for more information daily.

"People seem to dig the site and dig talking to Michelle," he says. "To tell you the truth, I was blown away by the number of service requests."

And still there’s room to grow, he says, and no need to rush. The site should evolve with the company, not push ahead of its owners. So far, online ordering isn’t available. Customers need to contact and communicate with the owners.

"They’re not close to ready for an online e-commerce solution," he says, "so we built a catalog system. Michelle can change the images from a computer anywhere in the world. The trick is to keep things fresh."

There are bugs. Two of my web site testers couldn’t load the opening Splash screen easily. The navigation line on the bottom and the road back to the homepage isn’t transparent. I’d say the biggest hurdle is the name, which is clever – after you figure out what it means – and the load time on the Splash page. Some people just won’t wait. The URL has a hyphen in it which is a web site marketing No-No. It won’t matter bother people who are clicking from links or when customers pass the name on by email, but it’s tough to remember, like the name, when referring the site in conversation or over the phone.

Monroe says the company got off the ground last June when she was unable to find commercial wedding invitations for herself and Rowan. I concur. I ended up designing my own wedding invitations too after glancing at the corny, gold and silver gilt-edged flowery invitations on the market. The ones I saw looked perfect for the marriage of Betty Crocker to Billy Graham, but were not for me.

"We’re out there for the people who want the hand-made wedding, but aren’t all that creative or crafty," Monroe says. "We even did a woman having a Gothic wedding."

The Inventations system is smart. People can request info or get a sample card via the web site. The personalized sample costs just $3. Prices run $3 to $6 per custom invitation. The average order, Monroe says, is about 100 cards with envelopes. That’s competitive with the commercial kind, she says, where most of the money goes into imprinting a stock design. Inventations does not address the cards. That’s up to the buyer, and they have a calligrapher standing by for those who want hand-lettering.

Working with an advertising budget of zero, Monroe says the team has worked to maximize their free listings on search engines and traded links with compatible web sites. It’s a lot of work, but it’s the way to go. Other wedding vendors, for example, can recommend Inventations to their customers, and turnabout is fair play. Customers have a great deal of personal input into the invitations they choose. The trickiest part, Monroe says, is usually finding a design that is funky enough for the bride, but acceptable to the bride’s mother. Because the process is conducted largely by phone, email and snail mail, Inventations never actually rarely meets customers in the flesh. Advertising is by word of mouth. Lately a number of brides in Boston have been referring new customers, and the same is happening in New York City.

Inventations keeps in close contact with customers after the wedding, Monroe says. The wedding is just the beginning. There are baby shower and birth announcements, plus birthday and anniversary party announcements to follow, and holidays too. Inventations already provides unique party favors and gift baskets, The sky’s the limit.

Smart. Monroe, who went to high school in Durham and graduated from the University of New Hampshire, has a degree in Communications. She has yet to give up her steady job. Tuttle, who currently lives in Farmington and works for Inventations full-time, will soon have her degree in Business. The pair currently puts half of their profits in the bank and are slowly building capital. Very smart. And marrying the webmaster isn’t a bad idea either.